i see the stars, i see the sun
by dasseinhundin
Summary: Between them and within them, there are gardens. [Written for Fakiru Week 2015, Prompt 1: Violet]


**Written for** ** _Day 1: Violet_** **for Fakiru Week 2015, though this was a rather loose interpretation of the prompt. Written to "China Roses" by Enya.**

 **Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

 **Rating: K+**

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 _ **i. eglantine**_

As a child he is springtime; gentle and temperate and warm and rosy. He basks within the shade of leafy trees and welcomes the kisses of sunshine on his cheeks because he is at the age where the warmth of the sun and his mother's arms are nearly one and the same. He is scraped knees and gentle showers and vivid greens and sweet pinks, and his laughter is perfume. His heart is still open and budding and great, and he has yet to learn of his thorns.

 ** _ii. columbine_**

As a boy he is summer; bright and sharp and sweet and loud. He prefers the tickle of grass on his cheeks now and the kinship of the passing clouds. His heart hangs heavy and ripe in his chest, filled to bursting with dreams and unwritten stories. He is whole and he is courageous, and like a flower he still grows towards the sun.

( _But each day the sky grows darker with the shadows of inky black wings, and his young eyes do not miss the worried glances his mother throws at the window, or the tightness in his father's face._ )

So he writes with a steady hand and the confidence of good intentions because he was raised on happy endings, and he is the age where he thinks himself a hero.

 _ **iii. bramble**_

As a young man he is gnarled vines; withered and vicious and quick to cut. He is knotted and twisted and scarred and calloused, and it shows on his old-young face. He knows now the price of not knowing one's place, and so he bites back the bitter taste of failure and focuses on fitting his mold.

( _He used to think that only good could come of heroes, and this faith had been his folly._ )

It is suffocating, this title, this metallic tang of stagnation and defeat. But seventeen years and two funerals have taught him that when surrounded by thorns, it is best not to move at all. So he focuses his fire on fitting his role, and replaces his pen with a sword.

 _ **iv. tansy**_

She, however, is a windstorm: loud and invasive and a mess of clumsy limbs, and like a weed she keeps showing up uninvited. He is getting rather sick of having to dispose of her like an underpaid groundskeeper, especially when he has more pressing concerns to attend to. Like the girl in the white tutu who dances like rain and sounds like springtime that has begun to enrapture his charge.

( _Yes, he thinks,_ _ **she**_ _is the one he must look out for._ _ **She**_ _is the one that will make the gears start turning._ )

Despite their differences, however, both women leave a distinctly stale taste in his mouth. It reminds him of the taste when he wakes up from a long, deep sleep, and it feels far too much like an omen.

 _ **v. convolvulus**_

This girl is everywhere.

She is more than just the wind now; she is an all-encompassing storm and he is being swept away to sea. At first he finds it an irritating coincidence that she happens to be wherever he wishes her to be the least ( _usually by his side, or worse—the Prince's—_ ) but now he realizes the great, bitter irony that this girl and Tutu are one and the same.

How he was so blind before he does not understand, but what he does get is that he and this girl are entwined somehow, and despite how fiercely he opposes her, down in his bones there is a startling uncertainty of just which side of his blade she should be on.

 _ **vi. chrysanthemum**_

He does not know how she does it: despite the crippling weight of her destiny, she smiles. Sometimes it's shallow, sometimes it's pained, but it is always ever-present on her sunkissed, freckled face.

( _And oh, how he misses the sun! How he misses the air and the wind and the feeling of breath in his lungs._ )

She insists on moving forward, on fighting for anyone but herself, and it leaves him a little speechless and a little exasperated, and a little more whole than he's felt in a while.

( _Since the springtime and the shade of trees; since the time when his heart was ripe and his intentions were good and his roots were not so withered._ )

 _ **vii. oak leaves**_

He wants to be brave for her, he decides. He wants it for a great many other reasons as well, such as his father and his parents and his sister and the Prince, but he wants it for her the most, he thinks. She has tried so hard for everyone but herself, and it has been a while since he's bothered trying any plan of his own design.

( _He knows now that stagnation is a cowardly thing; but he is used to being a coward just as he has grown used to the dark and the taste of regret._ )

So he swallows his pride ( _though it goes down his throat like a cocklebur,_ ) and asks for the help of the boy with the glasses.

( _It is a curious thing, he thinks with unease, that the pen in his hand feels heavier than the steel of his sword._ )

 _ **viii. dodecatheon**_

It is strange, this peace he's found. It is such a foreign emotion to him now, much like the wind on his skin. He cannot hear it, but he can feel the soft caress of it; feel the gossamer of grass against his legs and the beginnings of goose flesh upon his arms.

( _Oh, how he has missed this—the warmth of daylight and the sweetness of fresh air, of his mother's hands and his father's voice. The tree speaks to him in whispers, and it reminds him of his childhood, when he was not yet so wilted—when he still thought himself a hero._ )

But beyond the thousand voices he hears at once upon the wind, another beckons him with a gravity that he's never felt before. It is raw and pleading and desperate and real, and suddenly this peace feels more like complacency. He had sworn to never again allow himself to settle, and so he claws himself away from the promises of shade and gentle breezes to meet the sun and the storm.

When he awakens it is in her arms, and the air he finds is not as thick or perfumed. It is the same stale air of a frozen fairytale, but it smells of her, and he breathes deeply.

 ** _ix. lichen_**

He finds her at the bottom of the lake; crumpled, wilted, and shaking. She is crying, thin hands clutching uselessly at the silver chain of her pendant with white knuckles and trembling fingers.

( _Such small hands, he muses—it leaves him in a stricken awe at just how much_ _ **good**_ _these hands have done, and wonders how such little hands could possibly hold so many hearts._ )

She is afraid to be alone, he realizes, and his heart swells with such intensity that he finds himself swept away by the pull of its tide. He can hardly bring himself to care, however; not when he takes her hand and promises her forever.

( _He knows those fears, he knows them well, for they fester deep within his own heart as well: thoughts of loneliness and of not belonging, and he prays that for once, his best will be enough._ )

 _ **x. hawthorne**_

She is as graceful as a sapling in a gale storm, movements clumsy and heavy and painfully off-balanced. Any well of coordination she had, had as a human has dried up like a spring in the desert, and when she makes a pirouette she nearly topples. But she goes through the motions with a practiced surety that he almost envies, standing again despite the crows that sprout up to oppose her like weeds.

( _How is it that he had ever compared her to such a thing? She is welcomed now, like a garden welcomes the rain after the pain of a drought, and to imagine her anywhere else than by his side leaves his throat dry and his chest cold._ )

His fingers tremble as he writes for her—he has tried his hand at being a hero before, and he can feel the press of thorns against his lungs as he struggles to take a breath. But he can hear her, can feel her warmth and determination trail through his chest and down to his fingertips, and for the first time in so, so long, he is reminded of the spring.

 _ **xi. violet**_

The air is crisp now.

The grass is lifeless and dull and crunches tiredly beneath his feet, and the sunlight gives little heat to stave off the growing chill. But she is a welcomed—( _ **always**_ _welcomed—_ ) bundle of warmth tucked against his chest as they wander the side of the lake. It is nearly frozen over now, but she still insists on coming anyway.

( _They both have things they're drawn to, it seems._ )

But he does not mind when she awakens him in the early morning to traverse down to the lakeside. After so many years of temperate weather, it is a refreshing feeling to be able to experience such change.

( _It reminds him that the world is spinning: that they're here and alive and they're_ _ **free**_ _._ )

When the wind blows, stinging against his bare cheeks he remembers the warm summer days of his childhood, but the longing that would burn hot within his breast is soothed by her contented sigh. It will be a while before he can feel the warmth of sunlight or the gossamer of grass, but there is spring in her heart and flowers in her eyes, and when the ground begins to thaw, he decides he'll plant a garden.

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 **Flower Meanings:**

 **-eglantine (poetry, I wound to heal)**

 **-columbines (folly)**

 **-bramble (remorse)**

 **-tansy (I declare against you)**

 **-convolvulus (bonds)**

 **-chrysanthemum (cheerfulness under adversity)**

 **-oak leaves (bravery)**

 **-dodecatheon (you are my divinity)**

 **-lichen (solitude)**

 **-hawthorn (hope)**

 **-violet, blue (love, faithfulness)**


End file.
